A small mountain ridge between Tum
airport and Maji village. This is the area of Dizi people.

Dizi people walking to Maji market to
sell their products. Dizi people are quite a mild tribe. They do not
have such "hot blood" as Surmas.

Dizi boy

In Kibish - probably
the most "civilized" village of Surma tribe. Surmas can be seen with
their famous sticks, used occasionally for fighting.
The donga stick fight is fought with long, straight
poles of about eight foot long made of very hard wood, and the Surma
men perform these fights to prove their masculinity, to settle personal
vendettas but most importantly to win wives.

Some flora

Some fauna

Surma boy carrying something...

Surmas in their hilly territory

A cool young Surma with body painted
with white clay - typical for Surmas.

A more "dangerous" Surma. Guns can
be frequently seen here. Southern Sudan is just about 50km from here so
there is no problem to get them. And Surmas have lots of enemy tribes
around - especially Bume tribe.

Surma boy with small wooden block in his
ear to continuously enlarge them for taking larger ear plates.
Men carry only ear plates (it they carry them at all), women usually
carry both ear and lip plates.

Plastic containers have not reached
Surmas yet. This woman is having her lip cut off. This is usually done
when a husband dies .

It is not completely clear why
Surmas started carrying these lip and ear plates
. Some say that the plates prevented Surma women from being taken
into slavery. Plates are usually round but other shapes can
be occasionally seen as well.

The greater the lip plate is, the
more precious the woman is . Size is proportional e.g. to the
number of cows a man has to pay for the a woman to marry her. This size
is quite large and could be worth of approx. 50 cows I guess for
marriage (but I"m not an expert....)

Without the lip plate....

Ornaments burnt into
the skin (I think it is burnt) are common among women as well. It must
have been very painful...

There are many tribes in Omo valley area
but water pipes (made from dry hollow fruit) can
only be seen among Surmas. Anuak and Nuer people from Gambella region
are more famous for water pipes.

Surmas are mainly pastoralists. They
breed mainly cows. Sorghum (with some kind of cabbage) is their main
diet. They drink milk and blood from cows as well. I've seen bananas
there as well.

And this is their "bread" made of
sorghum (it is just crashed and boiled till it is soft, the result is a
bit sticky)